It would mean a lot for Ubuntu to implement the latest Linux kernel available

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) is still on track for an April release, and the Ubuntu developers are working to implement the latest Linux kernel available at this time.

For now, the latest Linux kernel available is 3.13.5, which has been released for a couple of weeks already. Usually, a new Linux kernel is made available on almost on a weekly basis, but it's not a rule. Instead of reading about Ubuntu developers getting the latest 3.13.6 into their distributions, we see that they are implementing a new version based on the “old” release.

“The 3.13.0-15.35 Trusty kernel is available in the archive. This is bssed on the v3.13.5 upstream stable update. Our unstable branch has also been rebased to track the latest v3.14-rc5 release,” reads the announcement made by Canonical's Joseph Salisbury on the official mailing list.

It's interesting to note that Ubuntu developers are still tracking the development version of the Linux kernel, which is now 3.14 RC5. The previous development cycle for the 3.13 branch only included eight Release Candidates, which means that Canonical might find the time to get the newest one.

The developers need to have the final version of the Linux kernel 3.14 by April 3, which is the date for the kernel freeze. If the development cycle stretches past that date, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS might have to contend with the 3.13 branch.

A similar situation also happened just before the release of Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander). The developers had to implement Linux kernel 3.10.x, although the next in line was only weeks away from the final version.

Linux kernel 3.10.x quickly reached end of life, but the Canonical team in charge of the kernel picked up the slack and continued to support it for the duration of the support period for Ubuntu 13.10, which has a few months left.

Ubuntu developers have done a great job so far with the new operating system and have included a large number of features, some of which will make the Trusty Tahr edition stand out. Unfortunately, the software freeze (beyond this point new packages are not accepted anymore, only bug fixes for the existing ones) is already in place.

It will be interesting to watch this “race” between the Linux kernel development and the kernel freeze date for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but we can only hope that a stable 3.14 version will be out in time.